The platformer is one of the oldest and most loved genre’s in the gaming world. The 33 years between Space Panic and Super Mario 3D World has seen countless memorable and entertaining titles. There may be divides between RPG’s, FPS’s, and any other acronyms but everyone can enjoy a good platformer. If you’re anything like me you look at the platformer with the wide eyed wonderment reminiscent of a child watching their great uncle’s magic tricks. Now, contrary to the title of the article, I’m not going to give you a tutorial on designing your own platformer (I don’t feel quite qualified to teach coding techniques… There are much better people than me out there that can teach you that). This article is about a particular platformer that I played recently that blew my mind and I want to deconstruct the genre to find out exactly what it is that I love about this game, also, I just want to gush.
The platformer genre kind of drifts all over the gaming spectrum with some concentrating most on battle elements like Mega Man and some concentrating most on exploration like Cave Story; there’s shooters, there’s brawlers, RPG’s, stealth platformers, puzzle platformers, there’s first person platformers like Mirror’s Edge, and it even gave birth to one of my favourite subgenres: the Metroidvania. The nature of the platformer is so open-ended that it is the perfect model for people to test new ideas and mechanics which is why you see so much diversity in the genre adding legitimacy to the gaming industry as an art form. Level designs are art pieces in even the blandest of platformers. To keep things simple I’ll discuss the basic 2D platformer where the aim of the game is to jump on platforms and progress through levels until the game is finished; the first game to come to your head will probably be Mario.
Back in the day before the rise of the 3D world, the 2D platformer thrived and flourished with Mario at the helm bouncing and cape gliding into the memory banks of today’s tricenarians. The 3D age left a bit of a 2D-less hole in the history of gaming until the explosion of indie development put 2D back on the table. The Mario formula is probably one of the most overused among the indie community because it’s easy: take the Mario code, add your own skins, tweak a few values, come up with a few level designs and voila, Bob Was Hungry. Because it’s such a basic formula you can add anything to it and it fundamentally changes the entire game which can be good or bad depending on the idea; the skill to making a good platformer is having the vision to know if you’re idea is good. Take a look at Super Meat Boy, the only real differences between it and Mario are the threats, the movement values, and the abilities from all the different characters, everything else is cosmetic and the game feels and plays completely differently; they had the vision to see what to add to the game to make it unique and keep it fun. A lot of the time games will just take what’s already there and add some gimmick to make it recognizable which can sometimes lead to bland, heartless titles but when done right it can create a completely new experience that stands out above the rest.
A perfect example of a gimmick platformer that retains its soul is Tinertia (finally I get to gush). Tinertia was released September of last year by Candescent Games and is one of the best 2D platformers I’ve played in my life. The gimmick to Tinertia is that instead of a normal jump button it employs an old Quake boost jump technique called the rocket jump. Instead of a simple jump arc that only propels you up you have a dynamic system that propels you away from the rocket’s explosion in any direction you want. With such a diverse mechanic you don’t need upgrades and or ability swaps to keep the game interesting: you just need the game to change around you which Tinertia does beautifully. There are 7 main areas in Tinertia each with 9 levels and a boss battle, and the level designs are some of the best I’ve ever seen. Each area has its own specific style and mechanics which are introduced tastefully and without insulting your intelligence with annoying button prompts or tutorials; in fact, it demands intelligence from you. At no point did I feel it was unfair when I died, and I died a lot. The difficulty in Tinertia is out of this world and because the game feels so nice to play it is immensely rewarding when you beat a stage. One point I think is very integral to creating a good platformer is making sure the controls are tight; one of the most annoying mistakes constantly being made in the genre is that of making the controls too floaty (*cough* Bob Was Hungry): difficulty should not come from annoyingly erratic controls. In Tinertia you have enough weight to your character to make all the controls feel significant and intuitive and you still have enough freedom to move around at the pace you need to. I’ve never had to think so much in a skill based 2D platformer before as the gameplay switches between fast paced action and intense intricacy requiring only the most flexible of grey matter. Tinertia is a perfect example of how a platformer should be: it’s unique, it’s memorable, and best of all it’s fun as hell. The only critique I have against the game is that the rocket jump is a bit hard to get used to at first because you control where you fire your rocket launcher by tilting the right analogue stick in the direction you want to fire it, so there’s a degree of uncertainty while you’re learning the controls that would have been easily avoidable if the right analogue instead aimed and you used one of the triggers to fire.
So to anyone currently working on any platformers I hope you take note from this article. What gives a platformer heart is concentration on how much fun your customers are having while playing and with an emphasis on tight controls, teaching the player without insulting them, and interesting level design you can’t go too wrong; also if you’re going to put some unique mechanic or gimmick in make sure you don’t let it hinder the game’s fun factor. It’s good to have new ideas and want to implement them but do not assume an idea is good simply because it hasn’t been done before. Flesh your idea out, make sure it heightens the fun, and don’t be afraid that the player won’t understand it.
Theo Cookson